A new method for producing electricity from waste carbon dioxide emitted by power stations could be so efficient that it has the potential to create 400 times the amount of power that the Hoover Dam generates in a year, Dutch scientists have claimed.

Researchers from the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology in the Netherlands believe they have come up with a new technique to unlock the power of waste carbon dioxide pumped out of current power plants.

Their system involves mixing water and other liquids with combustion gas comprising a high concentration of carbon dioxide that are pumped between two membranes to produce an electric current.

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Described in the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the method uses waste gases from power stations and industrial smoke stacks as a raw material to generate electricity.

The scientists said that over 12 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is created annually from coal, oil and natural gas power stations, while home and commercial heating systems generate another 11 billion tonnes of the greenhouse gas.

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The team came up with a way to use the waste gas from power stations, industry and homes that they believe could produce a staggering 1,570 billion kilowatts of electricity annually.

The power equates to around 400 times the annual electrical output of the Hoover Dam, according to Bert Hamelers, a programme director at the centre.

He pointed out that the electricity produced would not add any extra carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

The scientists have come up with a way to use the waste gas from power stations, industry and homes that they believe could produce a staggering 1,570 kilowatts of electricity annually. The power equates to around 400 times the annual electrical output of the Hoover Dam (pictured)

THE TECHNOLOGY IN NUMBERS

12 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is created annually from coal, oil and
natural gas power stations

11 billion tonnes of the greenhouse gas is generated by home and commercial heating systems

1,570
billion kilowatts of electricity per year is what the scientists predict their technique could produce using waste gas from power stations industry and homes, which is...

400 times the electrical output of the Hoover Dam located on the Colorado River between the US states of Arizona and Nevada

However, it will not remove carbon dioxide from the earth's atmosphere like carbon capture and storage techniques are intended to do.

'You bring it in and get the extra energy out, but you cannot sequester it.'

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the process of collecting carbon dioxide from places like power plants and taking it to a storage site where it is buried in an underground geological formation, instead of entering the atmosphere.

CCS has the potential to curb the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming but although the method has been commercially used, the long-term storage of carbon dioxide is still a relatively new concept.

There is also some way to go before the technology developed by the Dutch scientists can be used on a massive scale as it is currently a proof-of-concept technique.

To test their theory, Dr Hamelers and his team used a well-known experiment to create bubbles of the gas and air through a liquid, NBC News reported.

More development of the technology is necessary before it can be tested on a real power station (pictured). It is hoped that the method of generating extra energy could be used instead of expanding current power plants to meet increasing demand for electricity

Currently the process uses more energy than it produces but membrane-based processes that are proposed by the scientists to use in the 'real' technology use less energy.

Dr Hamelers said: 'The objective for us was to show that, yes, there is this source of energy and, yes, you can harvest it.'

Although he conceded that more development of the technology is necessary before it can be tested on a real power station.

It is hoped the method of generating extra energy could be used instead of expanding current power plants to meet increasing demand for electricity.